But what if the party had known that, say, 25,000 people intended to caucus, instead of 15,000? According to Lara Lee Hullinghorst, chair of the Boulder County Democrats, there isn't much else that could have been done.

"If we had known there was going to be this number," she said, "would we have tried to do more? Of course. How much more could we have done logistically?

Hundreds of Democratic voters wait in line outside of Boulder High School on Tuesday night to participate in their party's caucuses. (Cliff Grassmick / Staff Photographer)

"I don't think there's any way we could have handled this amount of numbers no matter what."

Just before 1 a.m. Wednesday, the county Democratic Party announced that 23,568 votes were cast in Boulder County. It's not known how many people were turned away, or gave up upon seeing Tuesday night's long lines.

Of that total, Bernie Sanders received 17,275 votes to Hillary Clinton's 6,265 votes in Boulder County.

Earlier, as the hour neared midnight on Super Tuesday, Hullinghorst and her vice chair, Morgan Young, spoke from the party's headquarters in east Boulder of what they described as a series of limitations.

For one, they said, the party is hampered by the number of sites it can secure.

Advertisement

Across Boulder County on Tuesday, the Democrats ran caucuses at 22 different sites, ranging from those designed to serve thousands, such as Boulder High School and Centennial Middle School in Boulder, to the very small, such as a fire station in the 200-person foothills community of Jamestown.

But with advance warning of what was to come Tuesday, Young said, it would have been difficult to bump the site roster up from 22.

"It's a matter of renting the spaces, getting the insurance," he explained. "Schools are pretty much our ideal, and there are only so many schools that can handle this kind of capacity."

For example, the party doesn't like to rent elementary schools for caucuses because the chairs there are too small for adults.

"We have to do schools that have a large gymnasium, and then multiple rooms to break out for individual precincts," Young added. "In some cases, we can do a fire station, but for the most part, there are really no other choices."

Of course, the party is also challenged by the fact that Boulder County Republicans hold caucuses on the same night, and jockey for many of the same spaces and schools.

After running through the ostensible limitations, the party leaders lamented the fact that they could not harness Tuesday's massive enthusiasm, and, in fact, alienated and discouraged huge numbers of voters who had hoped to be heard.

But the reality remains: The debacle in Boulder County would have happened with or without advance warning, and calls into question the efficiency of the caucus system moving forward.

Many in Tuesday's long lines grumbled that primaries, which Colorado hasn't seen since 2000, are easier and more democratic.

Even more of them would likely have been even more incensed to learn that the primary system was scuttled in Colorado in large part because primaries cost a few million dollars of state money to run, while caucuses see local parties covering their own bills.

"We have bent over backwards to do this caucus process to the extent possible, and our volunteers have bent over backwards," Hullinghorst said. "But at the end of the day, I don't think that with the numbers we have in Boulder County, that the caucus system is viable."

No doubt, the county Democrats and officials throughout the state will be hearing similar sentiments in coming days, particularly from Boulder County voters whose disenfranchisement Tuesday was more than a bummer, but an actual distortion of the voting process.

"My heart bleeds for everybody that didn't get the opportunity to participate at the level they wanted to," Hullinghorst said. "I just hope that they know that just standing in those lines, just putting themselves out there, shows how strong the Democratic Party is here, and that actually means something."

The Boulder alt-country band gives its EPs names such as Death and Resurrection, and its songs bear the mark of hard truths and sin. But the punk energy behind the playing, and the sense that it's all in good fun, make it OK to dance to a song like "Death." Full Story